If you should, under these instructions, obtain possession of Mobile, you will lose no time in informing Governor Claiborne thereof, with a request that he will without delay take the necessary steps for the occupation of the same.
All ordnance and military stores that may be found in the Territory must be held as the property of the Spanish Government, to be accounted for hereafter to the proper authority, and you will not fail to transmit an inventory thereof to this Department.
If in the execution of any part of these instructions you should need the aid of a military force, the same will be afforded you upon your application to the commanding officer of the troops of the United States on that station, or to the commanding officer of the nearest post, in virtue of orders which have been issued from the War Department. And in case you should, moreover, need naval assistance, you will receive the same upon your application to the naval commander in pursuance of orders from the Navy Department.
From the Treasury Department will be issued the necessary instructions in relation to imposts and duties, and to the slave ships whose arrival is apprehended.
The President, relying upon your discretion, authorizes you to draw upon the collectors of Orleans and Savannah for such sums as may be necessary to defray unavoidable expenses that may be incurred in the execution of these instructions, not exceeding in your drafts on New Orleans $8,000 and in your drafts on Savannah $2,000, without further authority, of which expenses you will hereafter exhibit a detailed account duly supported by satisfactory vouchers.
POSTSCRIPT.--If Governor Folk should unexpectedly require and pertinaciously insist that the stipulation for the redelivery of the Territory should also include that portion of the country which is situated west of the river Perdido, you are, in yielding to such demand, only to use general words that may by implication comprehend that portion of country; but at the same time you are expressly to provide that such stipulation shall not in any way impair or affect the right or title of the United States to the same.
_The Secretary of State to General Matthews_.
SIR: I have had the honor to receive your letter of the 14th of March, and have now to communicate to you the sentiments of the President on the very interesting subject to which it relates.